A committed anti-feminist who mobilised an army of fellow homemakers fifty years ago to campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment that would have offered women protection from discrimination has been dramatised in a Cate Blanchett FX mini-series – Mrs America. Phyllis Schlafly was no sock-knitting, apple-pie baking, stay-at-home mom, but a frustrated defence and nuclear policy expert, a mother to six children with an unsuccessful bid for Congress under her belt, who fell on the happy notion of using ‘feminine’ issues to further her political ambitions.
She had all the usual hair-raising right wing views – anti-abortion, anti-same-sex marriage, didn’t think marital rape existed, was anti-arms control with the USSR, against WTO and globalization, criticized a Supreme Court judge for making the casting vote to abolish the death penalty for minors.
She was born 15 August 1924 11.25pm St Louis, Missouri, and had a 4th house Sun, Neptune and leadership North Node all in Leo. Her ambitious 10th house Mars in Pisces was conjunct her Moon; with Uranus in Pisces on the focal point of a wide-ish Yod to Neptune Sun sextile Saturn. Such a Uranian Yod is self-willed and fated to play a trail-blazing role as a catalyst – in this case against rather than for change. But she was definitely a power in the land.
She had Jupiter in the 7th and clearly a supportive marriage. Though what is odd is that her Sun/Moon midpoint which is the marriage significator was square her Mars – so she was hardly the submissive type, more a raging lioness.
Her husband Fred, 30 August 1909, was a Sun and Jupiter in Virgo – and their relationship chart had an argumentative composite Mercury opposition Mars; a needs-space Uranus opposition Venus and an affectionate Sun Venus conjunction. But nothing that remotely suggests a doormat wife.
She clearly hoisted her flag up the flagpole to see what would fly – and what ensued was a piece of political opportunism which turned her into a hardened ideologue. Trump attended her funeral in 2016.